A Spoonful of Sugar
by Regency
Summary: (Spoilers for BJB.) A very pregnant Bridget is having trouble sleeping and Mark tries his best to help. Companion to "The Beat Goes On."


Author: Regency

Title: A Spoonful of Sugar

Pairing: Mark Darcy/Bridget Jones

Warnings: talk of pregnancy discomfort but that's all

Rating: E/G

Summary: (Spoilers for BJB.) An Expectant ™ Bridget is having trouble sleeping and Mark tries his best to help.

Prompt: 'I'd love to read something about mark and Bridget spooning (either whilst she's still pregnant/can't get comfortable to sleep etc or post bjb ending)'

Author's Note: Come flail with me on Tumblr at sententiousandbellicose. You can prompt me things, if you don't mind a bit of a wait. You can assume this story takes place in the same continuity as The Beat Goes On or maybe it stands on its own. I'll have to think about it.

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from any incarnation of the Bridget Jones series. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

* * *

Bridget was on the verge of nodding off with Mark's assistance. He was singing to her. More or less. Maybe more like talking to an identifiable melody, but it was soothing to Bridget's fractious nerves just the same. All things Mark Darcy were homey and safe, and therefore very comforting to an Expectant ™ Bridget Jones.

" _A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, the medicine go down, the medicine go down_ –and we wonder where our youth developed a penchant for mixing cough syrup and sugary chasers. We gave them instructions."

Bridget startled herself from a floating semi-sleep laughing. Leave it to Mark to decide the dead of night, mid-song was the appropriate time for commentary on youth culture. "You're ridiculous."

He reverently kissed the slope of her shoulder. "You're amazing. Glad to hear you laugh again."

"I laugh."

"You wicker a bit here and there." He planted a copse of kisses behind her ear.

Bridget stiffened. "Are you comparing my laughter to horse noises?" She knew she'd started to sound a bit different once she reached her third trimester, but _wickering?_ Honestly.

"Mmm, more your mood." Seeming to note his gaffe, he wavered. "No, move to strike. Forget I said that. You laugh like bells, you're as happy as a clam."

Because she was quite enjoying all this quality Mark time, along with this quality Mark snuggling, she elected to be magnanimous and not to make him sleep on the floor for comparing her, his pregnant future wife, to a horse.

"You're lucky you're top human rights cuddler."

"Is that your new moniker for me?" He wrapped himself more securely around her, rubbing his cheek against her hair like the satisfied big cat he was. She was feeling very forgiving, indeed.

"Top barrister, top shagger, top snugglebug, and soon to be top dad. Sounds good to me." Baby gave a lethargic roll inside her as if squirming to find a less awkward position for rest. _Fat chance of that._ She was in a similar predicament.

Back Mark went to his campaign of kissing every inch of exposed skin he could reach: the shell of her ear (she wiggled), her temple (she sighed), the inverse plane of her cheek (her eyes slipped shut), the line of her jaw (she nuzzled back). He wasn't kissing her with any particular amorous intent but to distract her from how uncomfortable sleeping had become as her pregnancy progressed.

Then again, everything had become uncomfortable. Her feet were too swollen for her to wear her favorite shoes. She was growing out of her clothes at an alarming rate. Her breasts were tender and sore and _leaking_ with alarming regularity. There was nary an hour where her back didn't ache with a vengeance. She had to pee constantly. No, _constantly_ –in fact she had to pee right now, but she was hoping if she fell asleep soon enough she could put that off till morning. She was always hungry; she was just a bulging stomach with legs, both figuratively and literally, based on her last gander in the mirror.

The baby scrambled arse over tit, or so it felt, and Bridget started to wheeze, her breaths shortened by wherever Baby had decided to set his weight. She hated when this happened. Moving to find a comfortable position to breathe from kept her– _them_ –up half the night _every night._

"Hang on, let me try something."

Mark wrapped one supportive arm around her and with the opposite hand, he pressed down on her belly slightly from just beneath her breasts, prompting the baby to shift away from her diaphragm and her to breathe more easily.

She tangled their fingers together over her stomach once she could take deep breaths again. She didn't have to thank him for him to know how grateful she was. He had all the tricks memorized, had read all the books he could get his hands on. Like the barrister he was, he felt best armed when well-prepared. _If our baby's half as bright and loving as Mark, that would be enough._ She'd love their baby no matter what, obviously, but she couldn't deny wanting her child to be a reflection of the person she loved so much. He'd said much the same to her.

For reasons she only partly understood Mark still loved her as passionately as he had so many years ago. Mark carried a torch that had refused to burn out, whatever wind blew its way. She was no different, really. Walking out on true love for the sake of one's own good didn't negate the fact that it was love in the first place. Once you've had it, it's galling (see: _depressing_ ) to settle for imitators.

Though it was the unforeseen conception of a child that brought them back together, Bridget was now certain that nothing could have parted them forever. Whether it happened some random day outside a Waitrose or when they were pensioners well down the line, Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy would have found each other again. Some things were the best sort of inevitable.

Bridget was tugged once more from the edge of sleep by Mark's voice, only he wasn't speaking (or singing) to her this go round.

"Have I already mentioned Cairo?" he asked out of the blue. "It's a terrible quandary. Do you legitimize a potentially problematic regime by negotiating or abandon people in need to remain a neutral party?"

One of those elegant hands he used to great effect in making arguments, not to mention making babies, had made its way back to her rather football-like bump where it covered her like a shield. Mark suppressed his protective instincts well when he thought they might offend her, but sleeping Bridget was fair game. Sleeping Bridget also never felt safer than when she had him to watch over her.

He massaged tender circles into her irritated skin. Her best efforts at cocoa butter and other internet-borne remedies hadn't halted the appearance of stretch marks, yet Mark carried on his thoughtful worship, none the wiser or concerned. It was _her_ body he loved; the state of it was immaterial so long as she was healthy and content.

He went on to describe the Cairo case in more detail than he had the previous night. Bridget had some faint recollection of him passionately making his case as though he were in chambers. _Is probably unaware he goes on like this._ She loved when he let his passionate nature slip to the foreground. This happened often when they were alone and now that they were back together, the frequency of emotive outpourings had quadrupled. But nowhere more than in bed in the middle of the night.

Imminent fatherhood had made Mark startlingly vulnerable, by choice, and not just to her. When he believed she was asleep he talked to the baby. He did it when she was awake, naturally, but he really cut loose when he thought he was as alone with their unborn child as he was going to get. He told the baby about work, in gentle but honest terms, saying that he wanted their child to grow up understanding the world without being afraid of it. He told what amounted to cautionary tales and then tales of valor based on what he'd seen. He told their child bedtime stories from his own life. And then, tonight, he started to talk about her.

"Your mum." The puff of his laughter warmed her neck. "What to say about her? She's all sorts of mixed-up and disaster-prone. She says the first thing she thinks without consideration of the consequences, she's brave tothe point of folly." Another delicious shoulder kiss. "She's too smart for her own good, or mine." He gave her an affectionate squeeze. She bit back of a smile. "And I love her quite a lot. You're going to love her, too." The baby kicked up something of a fuss. _Probably at being woken up._ "Don't argue with me on this. Just you wait."

Bridget shifted nearer to Mark. He said the sweetest things when he was sure she wouldn't hear.

"She's a terrible liar, however, and a worse actress. I'm sure she thinks she's convinced me she's asleep."

She opened her eyes to meet his expectant look. "Poo."

He chuckled gamely and kissed her softly to allay her disappointment at being found out. "Well put."

 _Mark Darcy, calming the ruffled and the tormented year after year. Love the lovely fiance._

Her subterfuge unraveled, Bridget kicked at the covers to relieve herself of the pressure on her stomach. Any little bit seemed enormous at this stage. _Why has nobody invented zero-gravity sleep chambers for expectant mothers? I could go for no gravitational forces right now._ The air was too heavy. Her thin nightclothes clung. Her nipples itched. Everything was awful and would remain so until she gave birth. _And to think, I was so eager to do this ten years ago._ She was fretting and she knew she was fretting yet she was powerless to end the delirious spiral of her thoughts and feelings. Sleep would help were sleep achievable in this state.

Mark tutted in sympathy at her agitation. "Come here, lean on me."

"I'm already leaning on you."

"Let's try another position."

"Isn't that what you said to me seven months ago that got me like this?"

Mark looked her over intently. "So I did."

Were she not a blob and exhausted, she would have been tempted to follow the topic of positions to its natural conclusion. As it was, the idea just added to her low-level misery. Now she was itchy, sore, tired, oversized, and a bit horny to boot. _Wonderful. May kill gorgeous fiance before wedding for crimes against self._

"I'm immense," fretted Bridget for the sheer hell of it.

"I think I can handle that." Mark coaxed her onto her back under his arm and then left her to scoot into her preferred position.

After some arduous rolling and tipping, Bridget propped herself and said immense bump up on Mark's side. The difference was practically instantaneous. The strain of bearing the (beloved) additional weight lifted from her back and hips. _Oh, he does have more uses than that brain of his and his other enticing bits._ She wiggled her toes and yawned, suddenly feeling highly capable of achieving a night's rest.

"Better," he presumed.

"Much. If this law thing doesn't work out for you, you could make a killing as a commercial mumsy prop."

"I'm afraid I'm a one-mumsy prop, so that ambition will have to go unfulfilled."

"Don't mock," she chided. "I'm with child."

"You are and you're doing beautifully, as you do most things."

"Except public speaking." She could never forget her multitude of oratory fuck-ups, though Mark claimed not to mind. Said they added to her charms. _Future husband is obvious sap._ She loved him to distraction. She had to blink back mumsy, hormone-fueled tears thinking of it.

"I'll grant it isn't one of your innate gifts."

"Very diplomatic response." Her desire to rankle him a bit was assuaged by him brushing her hair from her face to gaze down at her. His expression was mumsier than hers; it told all his secrets for him. _Or maybe there just aren't any left between us._ He stroked her cheek.

"Wouldn't do to start a row when the woman I love is just falling to sleep."

She yawned again, more softly, into the worn shoulder of his sleep shirt. "I'm not _really_ sleepy." She could stay up chatting with Mark for ages now that she'd halved her burden. She wanted to; she felt like all she did was complain nowadays while he took her moods in stride. _But god am I shattered._

He drew her closer to his chest and swept a soothing hand up and down her spine. _Like a man with no plans to chuck his future wife for being up the spout and sick of it._ Mark was still better at the doing than the saying, but he was learning to get his point across.

"Try to rest anyway," he advised. "You've been working hard."

"Gestating?"

"The hardest work there is."

Three months ago she would have balked at the idea she couldn't simultaneously train for a 5K marathon for charity, be maid of honor for a work friend, plan a wedding for herself, produce a quality television show, and grow a person. Nevertheless, her heightened self-regard was now tempered by experience. She _could_ technically do all that and then some, but she'd probably be better off sticking to the last two if she wanted to avoid complete and utter chaos, the likes of which would require a passel of Darcy hugs to recover from. _Best not to think about it._

She mimicked Mark's earlier cat impression and nestled deeper into his embrace. "Smart man."

"I do all right. I got you in the end, didn't I?" She could hear a smile in his voice. He kissed the crown of her head. "Rest well, darling."

Body soothed and heart at peace, Bridget did just that.


End file.
